Have you warmed your hands lately? How about your feet?Thousands
of people do it every day and they don't do it by putting their hands
or feet under warm running water or by holding warm clothes, straight
out of the dryer. They do it from the inside out.

Why would they do it?

Some
have headaches, or stress disorders, anxiety or have an illness that's
aggravated or set off by stress and tension. Some, the ones who warm
their feet, in particular, have diabetes induced circulatory problems,
or high blood pressure

These people are using the simplest,
most inexpensive and accessible biofeedback technology available--
thermal or temperature biofeedback-- to warm their hands and feet.

Thermal
biofeedback is based on a simple physiological fact. When you relax,
when you turn down your stress response, all other things being equal,
your hands warm up.

This understanding, that relaxation warms
the hands and feet and stress, anxiety and fear cool them is not new.
You've probably used or know phrases that characterize it, like,

"Cold hands, warm heart," for someone who is nervous, "cold feet," for someone who is scared or experiencing anxiety."hot head" for someone easily upset or angered

The idea was described by writers and poets literally hundreds of years ago.

Thomas Fuller, in his book Gnomologia, wrote, over 250 years ago,

"Head and feet keep warm, the rest will take no harm."

A few hundred years earlier, Shakespeare described the phenomenon at least twice in his writings:

"The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then we put upon the morning, are unapt to give or to forgive; but when we have stuffed these pipes and these conveyances of our blood with wine and feeding, we have suppler souls than in our priest-like fasts: Therefore, I'll watch him till he be dieted to my request, and then I'll set upon him."

These
are all phrases that describe the temper-temperature connection.
Stress, anger, anxiety, fear all set off the stress response. But it
wasn't until the last century that scientists understood the
process-- that the stress nervous system causes blood vessels in the
hands and feet to constrict, cutting circulation and cooling the
extremities. The cardiovascular component includes rapid heart beats,
increased blood pressure and shifting the blood flow from the skin to
vital organs and muscles braced in preparation for fight or flight.

Here's how the Cold Hands Stress Response WorksThe
muscles encircling the walls of blood vessels in the skin tighten up,
narrowing the lumen, or passageway of the blood vessels, decreasing
their diameter. This cuts the blood flow (vasoconstriction) and causes
the skin in the hands and feet to cool.

When the blood is
"squeezed" out of these blood vessels in the skin, it has to go
somewhere. It ends up raising blood pressure, going to the head and
contributing to migraine headaches when the blood starts pounding in
the braining, causing flushing or blushing. If a person suffers with
diabetes, then stress-caused constriction of blood flow in the feet can
worsen already problematic circulation or peripheral vascular diseas e which can cause pain, intermittent
claudication and worse. Thermal biofeedback for the feet in patients
with diabetes has helped enable them to walk further. In children with
labile diabetes it has helped them to stabilize insulin and sugar.

The
stress nervous system can also decrease blood flow to the gut, which
can cause irregularity in the normal motions of the bowel muscles.
Fluid absorption can decrease. This can set off symptoms of irritable
bowel or colitis-- diarrhea or constipation. Stress nervous system
induced reduced blood flow can also set off or aggravate menstrual
cramps or hot flashes, both highly vascularly related problems. Studies have also shown it can help symptoms associated with arthritis, Raynauds and chronic pain.

High
blood pressure or essential hypertension can be caused by the "cold
hands stress response," because the same amount of blood is forced into
a smaller volume. Diuretics and beta blocker medications both work to
decrease the pressure by lowering the volume of fluid-- diuretics by
causing fluid excretion, beta blockers by decreasing peripheral
resistance. That means relaxing the blood vessels in the extremities so
blood can be spread to a larger volume.

By touching your
fingers, which react the most dramatically to stress induced
constriction, to your lips, you can detect temperature changes as small
as three degrees fahrenheit. Temperature feedback uses precision
thermometers to feed back information about tiny changes in finger
temperature. Biofeedback instruments enable you to detect changes from
half a degree to one hundredth of a degree fahrenheit. The added
sensitivity makes voluntary self control of your finger temperature not
only possible, but probably the easiest form of biofeedback-- and
certainly the least costly.

The Discovery of the Power of Thermal BiofeedbackAt
the Menninger Foundation, in Topeka Kansas, in the mid 1960's,
researchers were studying the effects of Autogenic Training, a
relaxation technique developed in Europe, based on psychophysiological
responses to hypnotic suggestion imagery, which has had thousands of
studies published attesting to its efficacy. The researchers observed a
subject whose finger temperature increased over ten degrees in just a
few minutes. After the ten minute session was over, they asked, "What
happened?"

One theme has run through my work for the past 40 plus years-- a desire to play a role in waking people up, raising their consciousness and empowering them.
I was the organizer founder of the Winter Brain, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology and StoryCon Meetings and president of Futurehealth, Inc., with interests in (more...)